According to Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, "Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young."
As I mentioned above, it was such a pleasure for me to meet Florence and the other wonderful women who attended the Chamber event last Friday. There was a young lady there, who had just returned home from Australia and has aspirations to be a public speaker. She, too, sat right up front near Florence. It was a very engaging and inspiring group!
Research shows that "unless we use it, we lose it"! The brain, I mean.
What are you doing, these days, to keep your brain active? There are so many great opportunities for continuous learning – it can almost be overwhelming.
"Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have."~ Louis E. Boone
Researchers in the field of Subjective well-being (happiness) have found that there are certain characteristics that happy people have in common. Happy people:- Have self-control
- Are grateful
- Have good social relationships, supportive friends and family
- Have an adequate income
- Have respectable jobs, and
- Have a philosophy that provides meaning to their lives.
When you read these bullet points, do you see yourself in each one? If not, then there are ways of 'learning how' to be 'like' these happy people.
Self-control
The consistent practice of self-control starts with the realization that YOU are in control.
- You choose your attitude
- You choose your response
- You choose to set aside your personal problems
- You choose to give others a better day
When we take control, we refuse to be victims of circumstance, or of our own personal weaknesses. We take charge of our lives and of the situations that we face. This is a principal requirement for a happy life. We've talked about gratitude (visit my website at www.steps2happiness.com for past issues) and what a powerful habit it is.
We choose how we live our lives on a daily basis – I'm talking about those things over which we have control. For anything beyond our control, we choose our reactions.
We are always in a position to give others a better day! Smile at them! It's contagious and then, if you feel as though you are having a bad day – just keep smiling and 'act as if'.
When it comes to having an adequate income or a respectable job, we are in a position to make changes if that's what we want. Perhaps it requires more education and learning new skills. Perhaps it means learning to adjust to change and trying a different occupation or industry or business.
For most of us, it does come down to having a philosophy that provides meaning to our lives. We all need a purpose. This, too, can be learned.
When I traveled around the world, I was always looking for new experiences and new adventures. In Dubai, in the afternoon I was at the Mall of the Emirates and tried Tubing for the first time in my life. What a blast!
In the evening, back in the desert, I had the opportunity (after a glass of wine, for sure) to have a lesson in belly dancing. I would have been foolish not to seize the opportunity to learn these things 'while in Rome'.
I'm so happy that I did!
(That trip, and the many people I met, changed my life and changed my way of thinking. If you'd like more information on these trips, contact my friend, Ben, President, Travel Guild at 1.800.268.4284)
If you're not feeling sure of 'who you are' these days because of what is going on in your life, I'd recommend you make some changes starting today. . The tool that will take you 'here to there' the quickest is The 10 Steps2Happiness Home Study System. It's everything you'll ever need to know to fill your life with happiness and feel in control! All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. So, you do step one of the system, and when you're done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. So easy. That's why my clients have gotten such great results from it. You can get yours at www.steps2happiness.com.
Steps2Happiness Assignment- Today, think about an instance where YOU talked YOU out of doing something that you wanted to do.
- Write that down and then make a list of reasons as to why you didn't follow through.
- Is it still something that you would like to try, or experience? Then write down all the reasons why, now, you will act on it.
- If you are interested in something totally different, then make a commitment to yourself to learn something new this week – a new recipe, a new skill, create a new product, etc.
- Let me know what you did. I love to get your feedback.
- For more photos of my trip around the world, and to read my stories, visit www.travelblog.org/bloggers/Happy-Pat/
